Looking for input from Chinese 'dopers or 'dopers who have been to Beijing fairly recently. For full disclosure, I haven’t been to Beijing or even China recently…last time I was in China it was a business trip to Hong Kong, and I’ve only ever been to a couple of southern mainland cities (Guangzhou, Shanghai, etc)…and that over a decade ago.
In any case, was watching this video from one of the channels I subscribe to (Asian Boss…check it out if you like videos about things in Asia) which is asking Chinese what they think about the pollution in Beijing, as well as what they thought about the comments of a Chinese student who moved to the US and was critical of China about the air quality. Most of the Chinese who responded said that the air quality was fine and that it’s vastly been overblown. This is pretty contrary to what I’ve read or people from China I’ve spoken to (my son’s partner is from China, though again he’s from one of the southern Chinese cities, not Beijing), so thought I’d see what 'dopers think. Do you think the air quality in Beijing is fine and vastly overblown in the foreign press wrt it being terrible? Obviously, in such a short video as above you aren’t getting a very representative sample, but I’d say 8 of the 10 interviewed in there thought it wasn’t really an issue.
My biased comments on Chinese air quality:
[ul][li]Every time I get off the plane, the air always smells like a mix of farts and cigarette smoke, but I get used to it pretty quickly.[/li]On the one trip I made to Beijing, I didn’t notice any breathing problems but my black leather shoes would be coated with a surprisingly thick grey coating of Gobi desert dust at the end of the day.[/ul]
I’ve been a couple of times and it’s been OK, was last there in May and it was absolutely fine. Rode 20 miles round the city on a bike no probs. More relevantly, I was speaking to one of our students from the UK who had been on placement there for several months and she said basically fine, cycled to class each day, but with one or two severely bad days [by UK air standards]. And those days were forecast quite accurately IIRC.
Been to eastern Chinese cities quite a bit in recent years and they’ve all been fine for air quality, but never been to the interior of China. Know a few people from Lanzhou as it has a very strong university in my field, and they say that is (or was?) horrendous for air pollution.
Due to widespread public pressure (and a prodding move by the US embassy), PM2.5 data in China is now widespread and reliable. Air quality varies considerably depending on local weather conditions. At it’s best, Beijing air is no worse than any other place with PM2.5 levels below 20 or so. At it’s worst, it goes up to over 700 and is every bit as noxious and dangerous as you’ve seen in the widely viral photographs. Conditions change hour by hour though so what was a PM2.5 50 day in the morning might be 350 by lunchtime.
According to official sources, nearly 200 days in 2016 had a PM2.5 below 75. Only 40 days had PM2.5 over 150.
Most people don’t consider putting on a mask unless it’s at least 100, meaning that for 2/3rds of all days, a mask isn’t required but that still leaves quite a bit of time where you’re debating between being uncomfortable going outdoors or significantly compromising your health.
Here is different way of looking at those numbers:
[/quote]
Los Angeles’ skies are among the most foul in the United States: In the American Lung Assn.'s 2014 national State of the Air survey, the L.A.-Long Beach area ranked worst in terms of ozone concentrations and third worst in terms of particulates as measured by the standard known as PM2.5…
According to U.S. standards, an average annual PM2.5 reading of 12.4 or below is considered “good.” Downtown L.A.'s average annual reading for 2013 was 18…
The cleanest in China’s 2013 report, Haikou, had an average annual PM2.5 reading of about 26… Beijing, the 13th dirtiest Chinese metropolis, had a value of 90.
[/quote]
I asked a coworker who grew up there, moved to the US 4 years ago, and still visits home regularly. According to her its worse than anything she has seen in the US in terms of air and dust/particulates but not as bad in outright garbage as say parts of NYC. In her humble opinion is has gotten worse over her life (she’s 40) and she expects it to get even more so before it starts to improve.
There are various hues and shades of grey (so to speak) in all these measurements. PM2.5 is the most dangerous stuff but as the name suggests it isn’t visible to the naked eye, so simply looking outside doesn’t neccesarily tell you everything, and stuff that you can see is generally not as dangerous. There are alos other dangerous invisible particles like NOx, which comes primarily from diesel exhaust and was the subject of the VW diesel emissions cheating scandal. China largely bans diesel passenger cars and so NOx is not such a big concern, cities like London and Paris have significantly worse levels of NOx pollution than Beijing does.
By and large discussion about air pollution isn’t particularly sensitive in China, because air pollution isn’t a particularly difficult problem to solve - just tell the people who are burning the shit that’s causing it to stop burning the shit and the problem will be gone in a day. There will be a short term economic cost but the process itself is no big mystery or technical hurdle and if the Chinese government wants a quick boost to their approval ratings they can just give the order. Any time there is a major meeting of the NPC or the communist party, for exampe, the air quality will be raised to “good”. The topic thus gets an outsized amount of attention in the western press, because the western press largely gets its information from reading the Chinese equivilant of youtube or Daily Mail comments. By comparison, information on heavy metal contamination of farmland, for example, a much more difficult problem to solve, are state secrets and discussion online is largely censored.
When I was there in 2009, you could look up in the sky and stare at a lighter colored circle (known in other places as the SUN) and not hurt your eyes.
I haven’t been to Beijing since 1984. Pollution was not bad then. My ex wife recently taught in Guangzhou for a semester and she said the smog was often so bad you could see it indoors.
Most countries going through industrialization had things as bad; in Britain the Birmingham area was a gateway to Hell from the mid-218th century ( ‘*Dark Satanic Mills’ *) and everyone’s heard of the London Fog which was only stopped by severe regulation 60 odd years since. America had Donora, Pennsylvania.
Again only stopped by state action. Fact is that left to their own devices humans without statecontrol will make money any way they can and bedamned to the consequences for everyone. And everything. When they blow up mountains in Appalachia for coal a lot of birds and animals etc. of course lose their habitats.
Still the Chinese are going green faster than the rest of us.
The last time I was in Beijing the sun at noon was barely visible through the haze.
The hotel across the street from mine was hazy looking due to the pollution.
I have visited about 10 cities in China and rarely do you see clear, blue skies.
I flew back from Bangalore yesterday where the air was its usual smokey but pretty comfortable. A friend who is in Delhi said the bus and tour companies were handing out masks for all their passengers. He’s spent a lot of time in India over the past 2 decades and said that the current situation in Delhi is far and away the worst he’s ever seen.